episode 24: the first step. brilliance.

exosquad is a cartoon about war. more than that, it was a parable of world war 2. quick history: 50 years previous, the neosapian slave race rose up to free themselves from their human oppresors, until humans created exo frames to kick their asses, and now in the present, phaeton, the neosapian leader of mars, has used neosapians’ anger and feelings of inferiority to lead them into war against humans. see, exactly like world war 2. it’s history, look it up.

let’s rundown what it takes to put on the most epic war ever put to celluloid:

giant battle armor, each equipped with enough lasers, missiles, and grappling hooks to take out a small army. check.

a hitler-like ambitious, fascist villain who is also 10 feet-tall, super strong and has the ability to clone himself. check.

story lines dealing with the distrust, betrayal, loyalty, and the array of deep moral issues related to war, all told in a way children can easily understand. check.

the most spectacularly violent battle scenes ever. check. check. check. check. check.

having just watched all 52 episodes straight, i can say i have never in my life seen so much violence. there’s like a death quota for each episode, not to mention way too many scenes in hospitals where people have limbs blown off. hell, in an early episode they introduced a new character and killed her off in the span of a minute; then we spend the next two years
watching her commanding officer go through the guilt of her death. just watch this one episode and know the body count is relatively low. what were these people thinking? do they really think young boys want to watch this level of carnage?

holy crap is this show awesome!